An evening of musical decadence…

Derek is a legend… Ok not like the Beatles are a legend but Derek is our legend!

And we are ready for his launch. A whole bunch of new songs, mixed with old favourites and here’s a smooth cocktail for an exciting evening.

If you’ve heard Derek’s music, you know you want to be there. If you haven’t, just know you have to be there. The evening is bound to be filled with the unabridged atmosphere of the Labia theatre. For the historian lovers, the Labia Theatre is the oldest independent art-repertory cinema in the country. It was originally an Italian Embassy ballroom and was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949 as a theatre for the staging of live performances.

For your taste buds, go to Derek’s My Space and listen to a few of his songs.

Book your ticket! It’s in only 2 weeks time!!

…

Ooops, on the flyer, the email address has a mistake. It should read dleisegangband@gmail.com!

Potjie

If you’re a true South African, you will know what a Potjie is (and you might even know how to spell it!). If you’re not South African, you will have a blank look on your face 🙂

A Potjie is a traditional south african dish – in fact, it is traditionally afrikaans! if you wiki (wikipedia) “Potjie’, this is what it says as historical facts: Potjiekos originated with the Voortrekkers, evolving as a stew made of venison and vegetables, cooked in the Potjie. As trekkers shot wild game, it was added to the pot. Each day when the wagons stopped, the pot was placed over a fire to simmer. New bones replaced old and fresh meat replaced meat eaten.

Today there are loads of recipe books and potjiekos chefs. They all have their ‘secret’ ingredients or secret recipe passed on from old generations to new generations. Every year, there are potjiekos competitions held. In one word, Afrikaans people take their potjie very seriously!!

Not my husband though! Phillip has never done a potjie (shocked face!) but Etienne – one of the guys in our bible study group – has, many times!

On sunday we had our annual Young Adults Potjie event and for the second time, it attracted quite a nice crowd! The food was delicious, the company even better…. we had a great time!! Kids enjoyed the outdoor and adults enjoyed chatting away amid flavours of potjiekos simmering.

This is a BIG pot. These guys are big so you can’t see clearly how big the pot is but I could cook one of my kids in that pot!! Not that I would of course…

Etienne is the guy on the right with the cap and the apron 🙂 Same apron as last year!

The good news for us, as a Bible Study group is that this Wednesday, we have our own private function with Etienne as our chef!! Not to make anyone jealous, but we also have Kirstin – the chef in making – who will bake another one of her delicious AND beautiful cake!!!

Oh and it’s tonight!!!… Yum, tummy rambling!! 🙂

When Young Adults pray and worship…

Our last Young Adults meeting of the year was an evening of Praise and Worship. Thanks to Nicole’s organising gift, we could have it in the chapel, which is such a nice and intimate venue. A long drape on the table, many tealight candles, an unplugged guitar and a lot of people wanting to sing to the Lord and share His goodness over the year and voila!

We had enough food for a regiment, we sang beautiful songs accompanied with Steven’s voice and guitar and Chris’ sense of rhythm on the drum, and 4 people sharing what they learnt throughout the year, studying the book of Mark, Romans or Isaiah, or doing a Bible Overview.

How encouraging to see how faithful the Lord is, how He changes us, He changes our heart and gives us a desire to love and serve Him. How amazing that the Bible is the LIVING word of the Lord; it’s not just a book of good advice on how to live life, it’s not only a book showing us the example of a good man… no, no, no, it is THE book of salvation, the only book that can make us at peace with the true God, the book that will show us how to have our sins forgiven, the only book that will point us to Jesus. For some of us, this year, it strengthened our faith and knowledge that Jesus is real, for others it showed us that even in our sufferings here on earth, Jesus reveals Himself to be good and our only source of comfort. For others, it rebuked us and showed us that our life was not right in God’s eyes and convicted us of our sins. What a year! What a blessing to be part of God’s family!

This social was particularly emotional for us as Phil and I say good bye to this ministry with Young Adults. It’s been a few years and to serve there has been an immense privilege. We loved being involved with people of that age and tried to be of some guidance and support for some of them through studying the Bible. To know that Sean and Kirsty will lead the ministry from next year is wonderful as they are great christian. I personally have loved getting to know them over the past two years. YA is in good hands. They are a great example to follow at many levels, particular lately when tough times has come for them. Their commitment and strength in the Lord is remarkable. I know it is a lot of ‘superlative language ‘ for one post but I have great respect for them and I love them very much!!

We will keep Sean and Kirsty in our prayers, as well as the Young Adults.

In the world, not of it…

Last Young Adults camp for this year… A good end to the third term!

We left for Jubilee campsite on Saturday morning to be with a group of our Young Adults to learn more of God’s Word.

To be in the world but not of it. How to live in a world that is hostile to the king we serve, and therefore is hostile to those who love Him. How to be in the world, to be meaningful, to be considered, to be listened to, yet expecting to be rejected, mocked, and alienated… this was the theme of our Young Adults camp, this September month.

On the teaching side, we heard 3 different talks on the topic.

In the first one, Phillip reminded us from the passage in John 17:15 that Jesus sent us in the world like He was sent into the world by his father. John 3:16 shows us why God sent Jesus into the world – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God loves the world and wants people to have eternal life. This was so important to him that he sent his son into the world. It is no wonder that this mission is also important to Jesus and therefore he now sends his disciples (and by implication from John 17:20 us) into the world in the same way. It is not surprising that we see from John 17 that our mission would therefore look like Jesus’ mission. We will be sanctified by God’s Word( God’s word is truth) and we will suffer, like Jesus, because of the world’s rejection.

In the second talk, Mervyn used the same passage as Phillip and again reminded us that our mission is to be into the world. There is no room for withdrawal in a safe christian nest. There are three reasons to go into this world: for ourselves (to see what we can get out of this world), for others (to serve them) or for God. The latter is my mission, as a Christian: to be in this world for God’s glory.

Therefore, it has implications for my mission: It will be Christ-centred (if I want to glorify God, my message and my life will be about Jesus). It will be Word-shaped (the boundaries of my mission will be shaped by God’s word). It will be in community (no lonesome cowboy!)

In the last talk, Sean used a passage in Romans 14, looking at very practical examples of disputable matters. One of the challenges of the christian life is to love the weaker brother, not in an arrogant way, not because I am superior to him, but because God has accepted him. Who am I to judge another on an issue that is debatable? I was gently rebuked not to judge my brother in Christ because God is the Judge. I am free in Christ (to eat meat or to abstain, to homeschool or not to, to pray on my knees or standing, to have one child or a dozen, to marry or remain single) but I am not to be a stumbling block (as in ‘causing your brother to sin’) to others. As the apostle Paul says, the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, but a matter of righteousness, of peace and joy. Whatever I believe – when it comes to disputable issues – is to be KEPT BETWEEN MYSELF AND GOD (verse 22). Oh how I wish I could just hold my tongue at times and keep these things for myself!!

As always, the teaching was a great encouragement to live for Christ.

On the ah-ah funny side, Leighton led one of the sessions and I had a flash-back of the Youth camps: the famous memory verse that had to be re-enacted in different music styles (heavy metal, hip-hop, reggae…) That can only be fully experienced on a video footage to grasp the hilarious moments! However…

On the music side, as always, the YA band rocks!!! The musical genius of Steven and his team makes for awesome moments of praising God through songs!! A huge thank you for all the musicians and singers involved, it is a lot of effort to bring all the material, to rehearse regularly and to lead all of us so beautifully. The camp would not be the same without them… so thank you, thank you to Steve, Randall, Ryan, Daniel, Kirstin, Nicole, Candice and Nico for the sound desk!!!

On the fellowship/free-time side, we had the whole saturday afternoon to do just that. The only rule is: leave no man behind!

Most of the people went to Hermanus and had a close-up glimpse at the whales. They were so close from the shore!!! It was beautiful!!

…not so much fun??

Well don’t be fooled by a three year old strange face!!! We had a lot of fun together, being together, learning together, sharing together… We leave these camps, feeling stronger, richer, readier to be a part of this world, without being of it, to live a life that will glorify God through our actions, our behaviour, our attitudes, our speech and our thoughts.

Potjiekos

Another social with the Young Adults! We – that is Phil and I – really thank God this year for the social committee and its hard work to organise regular socials with our crowd!

This time we had a potjie (For the french people reading, you say “poïkie”). In South Africa this means only one thing, food prepared outdoors in a cast iron, round, three legged pot using either wood coals or charcoal. Usually it looks like this:

but for us at Young Adults, it looked like that:

 

Relate…

The last week end of February was our first Young Adults camp of the year. It’s been the culmination of a few months of preparations to make sure that everything was well in place. I’m not great at admin stuff – I like to blame it on all sort of extenuating circumstances “I’m too busy” “the kids are in my legs” “the Internet was not Internet-ish’…but it actually all boils down to: I’m not too great at admin stuff. One of my responsibilities was to make sure we have a camp site and organised the catering. If we ignore the steps in between (no the camp site is not available, yes it is but not the right date, oh no I booked the wrong date, oops I missed the deadline, when was I supposed to have the deposit paid?…), we managed to get the camp site we wanted, at the date we wanted (well I think it was the desired date!).

Phillip had the camp formed designed (by our good friend Jordan), the catering organised and more importantly the talks prepared. Our theme was Relate: God, Church, Marriage. I think we had very challenging talks, particularly the one on marriage.

The talk about God set the tone of the camp. For any other relationship to work, our relationship with God needs to be sorted. We need to have experienced the forgiveness of God, through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus to truly understand His Grace in our lives. We need to have submitted to the authority of our Lord to develop a truthful relationship with Him.

The second talk flowed naturally into understanding our relationships with each other in a world where it is so difficult to get along with people. If our relationship with God is right, we will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ; we will forgive each other because we have been forgiven; we will love each other selflessly because we have been loved unconditionally and selflessly.

Finally, the last talk was about relationship within marriage. While it is true that our relationship between spouses will resemble any other relationship, the dynamic within marriage is slightly different. For young people who are not yet married, it is a great advantage  to know what one should expect before you walk into such an important covenant. As Christians, we do believe that marriage is a once off thing, a one-time only offer, never to be repeated, a contract never to be broken so it is certainly not a light matter. How should  a husband be in a marriage? What are the responsibilities of a wife? Working with the text in Ephesians, Phillip showed us how the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, sacrificially, even when it doesn’t suit his agenda, even when his desires are not met, even when he’s tired and even when his heart is telling him otherwise… The wife on the other hand is challenged to submit to her husband, even when he is not worthy of submission. Would she allow him to be the head and  trust that he is leading her for her good, just as she allowed Christ to lead her to salvation? One very helpful illustration was that Christian leadership looks like an upside down pyramid, which implies in marriage that the husband becomes a servant head. Mmmmh, that strangely sounds like what Jesus is for us, the servant King. In the light of the different roles and responsibilities of each one, our choice of a spouse should rather be guided by his or her desire to be godly, rather than the desire to be handsome / sexy / funny or any of those qualities that do not contribute that much to a good marriage.

For me, he second highlight of the camp was the social side. This year, our Young Adults ministry has been overwhelmingly blessed . Nicole and her great enthusiasm formed a social committee with a few other members and really organised some exciting social events, before the camp but also on the camp. Her organisation skills are a real gift and she had planned quite a few games and social activities to break the ice and keep it melted during the week end. Another blessing was Kirsty and Leighton joining our ministry this year. Their energy and passion for the ministry is contagious and their extravert personalities always make for a good laugh!! YA are privileged to have this whole troop of gifted, committed and motivated people!!

Now in pictures…

That is the hall where we had all our sessions and games. A great 70 people made it on the camp and it created a really good vibe!

The first ice breaker game was to form to circles, one inside and one outside. The two circles moved in different directions and you had to share a little bit of your self with the person opposite you. Inevitably, you meet people you don’t know. Even if you only remember their name, it’s a first step!

 

This was a very funny game where you have to guess who you are. Julia aced all her questions with a resounding ‘yes’ and guessed who she was under a minute. Well done!! The others, on the other hands…

That is apparently a most famous game at youth. Kirsty and Leighton explained it. It’s something about numbers and chairs… It’s a rough game, not for small players! And 2 broken plastic chair and 1 broken wooden chair later, the winner is…

Gareth interviewed Grant. Many of us heard him at church already (although he was much less talkative there!) but Grant has such an extraordinary testimony that it’s with hearing it twice. Plus if you like me and you don’t understand everything first time, it helps to fill the holes 😉

 

Melissa was interviewed by Nicole. She gave us a testimony of how God intervened in her life to bring her to the point of submitting to Him. On a (much) lighter note, she also admitted she preferred vanilla over chocolate (hum hum, Gareth…)

Our music team was as usual at his best. I think – and I’m sorry for others – that on our Young Adults camp, we have the best music! The choice of songs is perfect, the musicians and the singers are so talented… It’s actually unfair on the other ministries! 🙂 Even little Nathan got excited on top of daddy’s head!!

And that is my hubby!! I think that his BIG interest in Mark Driscoll had an impact on him and he was even funny at times! I think he did a good job for the camp and I’m grateful to God that he could have the time and self-discipline to work hard for the talks.

But like Mervyn always reminds us, all the glory goes to God and his amazing blessings that He poured upon us. It was a successful camp, for no other reasons than we left there with Jesus at the forefront of our minds and His love for us deeply seated in our hearts.

Book club(s) week…

I belong to two book clubs. They are both monthly meetings and under normal circumstances, they don’t happen in the same week. However this month, not only I happen to have both in the same week, but it’s also the month where my house is painted inside and the month where I host both (dear old Murphy… 🙂 )

My Young Adults book club (YAB) started this year and it’s been a great year meeting up with Young Adults that are interested in reading Christian books. I’d love to have many YABs and with this idea in mind, we invited other Young Adults interested in joining in a book club. It was our last meeting of the year. We decided not to have a January meeting, since many of them would be away, being students and all… So we wrapped things up for this year until February and had pizzas and video (the newcomers might have thought that it’s a really interesting club to be part of!). Yeah, we bribed them with pizzas 😉 Before the video we did do the usual stuff though, introducing our new books and sharing about the books we read and the encouragement we found in them. It has been throughout the year a really nice time of fellowship as well where we have more time to chat, in a restricted environment with less people than when we meet for our Bible Studies. Because of different circumstances, some girls have to leave the book club and I’m really sad to say goodbye to Kyla (and not only for the book club sake!!), to Jill ( aka Jilly-Bean 😉 ) and to Kirsty (but I’ll still see you regularly!).

I’m looking forward to Feb, to start up again and, God willing, with a new brother YAB!!

My other book club has been running for longer but this month was very special as we had to say goodbye to one of our guest members for the year, Alison. Alison and her husband have been in Cape Town for 4 years, while he was studying at GWC (a theological college) but I only met them at the beginning of the year. They are leaving next week to go back to Kenya. As a farewell gift, a blog was open for them and each one of us had to write a list of some of our favourite books, (so that Alison has a big pool to choose from!)some of our recipes and a message of farewell to Alison. The idea was to present her with the new blog and talaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Poor sweet Alison was just too overwhelmed and broke down in tears – and so did many of us too! I think women have a problem with contagious crying 😉

Here nonetheless, she put on a brave face…(notice the books on the table, a proper book club…)

 

I can identify – at a much lower level –  with the mixed feelings of leaving friends behind, which is too sad to describe in words but returning to your country and be with your family again, which is wonderful. Alison’s blog, http://muchirafamily.com, will be a way for us to keep in touch with her and her with us. I pray that God will protect them (they have two gorgeous little sons, Jonathan 5 and Ezra 3) and bless their new ministry in their new home.

And before I closed this post, I just went to check if the address of Alison’s blog is correct, and boy, Alison!!! You’ve been blogging!!! You’re a fast learner 🙂

Steven’s BIG birthday celebration…

Last week end we had Steven’s birthday party at our house. What’s nice with Steven is that is a really relaxed kind of guy. Until the last minute, we didn’t know the time it would start (6ish) or the number of people coming (between 15 and 50). We knew it would be a braai and I assumed it would be late.

It did start after 6 (Young Adults are famous for the fashionably late arrival), it was closer to 50 people than 15, it was a braai and it did finish late. And it was a lot of fun!!! There was people everywhere. Most of them I knew, some I didn’t.

In the garden,

by the pool,

in the house,

 

at the table,

or just plainly on the floor – don’t ask!

Kirstin made a lovely cake, of which I have no proof, in the shape of a guitar, for the artist-musician-singer birthday boy.

And the evening ended up with a few of the guests crashing on our couch to watch the movie 300.

Terence gave us some of the sound effects accompanied with gestures – with a blurry effect because he’s soooooo fast 😉

Half past twelve, people were out and Steven was one day older…

Thanks Steven for sharing your birthday with all your friends!

PRAISE AND WORSHIP

On Friday, we had our Young Adults social to close our year 2008.

We had a Praise and Worship evening with finger food. The nice thing about this social was that we didn’t have to organise anything. Nicole and Steven came up with the idea (the one wanted the band to be involved, the other wanted some easy food to nibble on) and the two ideas combined achieved a very nice, meaningful, entertaining and relaxing evening.

We all had to bring something to eat or drink. I drew up the roster of who brings what, and I either underestimated how thirsty YA are, or the people assigned to bring drinks didn’t make it. We had far more food compared to cool drinks.  In spite of this, we were treated to wonderful music, not only because the voices of Steven, Candice and Nicole are just unbelievable, but also because we sang songs of worship and praise to our Lord Jesus.

Looking back at the year, we had a great year teaching and learning about the identity and mission of Jesus (for the Mark groups),discovering the proper explanation of the Gospel, which is " the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (for the Romans groups) and taking a long journey through time and history revealing in the Bible how God brings everything under the headship of Christ (for the Bible overview groups). What a better opportunity than our end of year social to say thank you and to praise God for all the wonderful things that He has taught us throughout the year.

The band preparing,

Beautiful candlelight display of the food,

Praying time,

And last but not least, Steven, being embarrassed by everyone singing ‘Happy Birthday!!!!’

Thank you to all who are involved in the Young Adults ministry. I know I’ve said it before but without God’s people willing to serve Him, there would be no ministry!

LEADERS UNLEASHED

November months are always fully packed!! Now to keep up with the blog posts on all these end-of year thank yous, farewell, socials AND birthdays (as far as WE’re concerned!), it’s not easy-peasy – new word, I know – not easy-peasy!!!

So with a few days delay, I wanted to put a few shots of our leaders-thank you-social-braai. Pfew, it becomes complicated to name these things. 

We moved our table in the middle of our garden; it gives such an nice ‘picnic-magasine’ picture. Practically speaking, it gives more shade but the green adds to the charm of it 🙂 We had such fun! The atmosphere was very relaxed, the people seemed pretty happy and chilled and the kids had entertainement provided for free (with some of our leaders being children-at-heart).

The reason why we have these end of year parties is not because we like to have an overbooked month of November but because we really want to say thank you to all the people that were invovled with the Young Adults ministry. If it were not for them, there would be no ministry to the Young Adults – nothing functionning properly at least. The growth that we see each year at Young Adults, not only in numbers but in maturity, understanding and application of their faith is due to God’s work in people’s heart, of course, but using the leaders as tools to teach and disciple these young adults.

So it’s a simple way to say thank you to you, leaders, for your hard work, your commitment to the studies and your commitment to be godly example by teaching and living God’s way.

Tiffany and David brought Jessie, Tiffany’s little sister. Her parents adopted her, just a year ago. She’s the most gorgeous little thing. She’s very peaceful and quiet and just happy. Discovering flowers…

and (fake) butterflies

Food was the center of attention, as in any appropriate social 🙂

Not just food but entertainment was also of the party. The big kids  – and I’m not talking about MY big kids – can’t stay still for too long and they need a little bit of exercise.

While the wives/girlfriends watched and seemingly encouraged their protégés.

And in the midst of all this, plenty of laughter, love and fellowship…

Leigh and Killian, discussing the things of this world and the world to come,

And I love the group picture! It will be such a nice memory!!

Ouf, and voila! It only took me an hour to upload these pictures…

🙂